


Rings and Roundelays

by greerwatson



Category: Puck of Pook's Hill Series - Rudyard Kipling
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Historical Fantasy, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4709951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas at Pook's Hill brings another encounter with Puck and the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rings and Roundelays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/gifts).



> The title, "Rings and Roundelays", comes—like that of Kipling's second Puck book—from the poem, ["Farewell, Rewards and Fairies"](http://www.bartleby.com/40/179.html) by Richard Corbet (1582–1635).

**_Holly and Ivy_ **

_O, crown the hall with garlands_   
_Of holly sharp and bold_   
_Its berries bright as drops of blood_   
_Men shed in days of old._

_And wreath the doors with ivy_   
_Draped dark and twining down:_   
_Reminder of the days gone by_   
_In distant London-town._

_But meet beneath the kissing ring_   
_Of frosty mistletoe_   
_And put aside old enmity:_   
_United henceforth go._

 

 

**Bleak Midwinter**

It was the day _before_ the day before Christmas Eve.  Just that morning, Cattiwow had delivered the great section of trunk that would be the Yule Log.  Once that had been safely disposed in the parlour fireplace—though not yet lit—Dan and Una were sent out of the house, both to keep them from getting underfoot and from begging to see the flames before the proper hour.  There was no snow; but the ground was white with hoarfrost, for the sun was barely up though it was well after breakfast.  Summer was long over, and with it the surreptitious doffing of footwear in meadow and wood so that their toes might wriggle freely.  Now was the  _rightful_ time for boots: moreover, they wore them with thick woollen stockings.

They crossed the lawn, leaving dark prints in the frost, wondering what to do with themselves.

“We could go to Willow Shaw?” suggested Una, and they wended their way towards their own private kingdom.  The path took them past the pig-pound and hen-house, whose inhabitants had the sense to remain indoors on such a day.  Outside the shed, though, they saw Hobden putting old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, between the shafts of a small cart.  This distraction was far too appealing for them not to stop.

“Eh, we’re set for to go up t’woods to fetch down the tree for you and your folks to fancy up,” said Hobden when asked.  “If’n you want to come along, jump up alongside o’ me.”

Such an invitation could not be refused.  The children had gone out with their father and Hobden a month earlier to select a suitable fir for a Christmas Tree.  Now, taking the old path through the woods, they retraced the route—not much faster than they had before on foot, for the old pony ambled slowly and was not urged to greater speed.  Still, they finally attained their goal; and, as Hobden fetched his big, heavy axe from the cart and sorted out ropes, Dan and Una walked round the young tree, once more admiring its skirts of well-needled branches.  Then Hobden joined them, checked the trunk, and made the first notch.

After another stroke or two, though, the children begged for a turn.  Hobden kindly allowed each of them to take a short whack at the trunk with his axe; but he watched them carefully nonetheless.  Then he set to the real work of felling; and, as he insisted that they stand well back, the children retreated towards the path, where Middenboro stood in his harness, nibbling idly round his bit at a tuft or two of grass.

“What goes on?” said a voice behind them.  “’Tis hardly worth the cutting, a little tree like that.”

“It’s for our Christmas Tree!” cried Una, even before she and her brother turned to see a man standing, hand on hip, looking quizzically at Hobden hard at work.  The hedger, intent on his work, did not turn round.

For a moment, it seemed to them that the man was dressed for some pageant of history (though they knew of no such entertainment planned in the village), for he was breeched and booted, with a broad collar round his shoulders and a buckled hat upon his head.  Then, quite suddenly, it came to them each that they had, some time in the previous summer months, seen another man dressed in much the same garb.  And then, having recalled the astrologer-physician Nicholas Culpepper, they remembered Puck.

They looked around to see him grinning from atop a fallen log.

“Christmas!” exclaimed the man, and he kept his voice low.  “You should not say such a thing so easily, children—and to a complete stranger!  _I_ shall not report your father to the authorities; but not all would be so lax in their duty.”

“Nay, Master Thomas,” said Puck.  “The children are safe enow.  Recall, I did tell you the tide had turned again.  Christmas is celebrated once more, and has been for centuries.”

“Well,” said the man, “ _we_ thought the dicing and mummery dishonoured God and the righteousness of His Birth.  Still, be that as it may.  I do remember taking joy of the season, even if only in the days of my boyhood.”

“You’re none so old yet, lad,” said Puck with a twinkle.

This impertinence Master Thomas chose to ignore, but addressed himself instead to the children.  “ _That_ ”—and he thumbed towards the fir—“be no fit sort of Yule Log, surely?  ’Twould scarcely burn a day, let alone the whole Twelve.”

“Ah, ’tis a custom but lately arrived on these shores,” said Puck easily, “come into to the Land with the old Queen’s husband.  This Tree is not for burning.  They hang it round with baubles and tie little gifts to its branches.  And,” he asked, turning to the children, “will there be candles?”

“Oh, yes,” said Una.  “Father always lights them for a little while after breakfast, and again in the evening.”

“On Christmas Day, anyway,” added Dan.  “While the tree is still fresh, you know.”

“Best not to burn the house down,” agreed Puck.  He hopped from his log, crossed the path, and drew further into the wood on the other side.  The children followed.  There was quite a chill in the air; and, at such a season, it warms one to keep moving.

“’Tis good to be home for Christmas, however one celebrates,” said Master Thomas as they walked.  “I come from hereabouts myself.  My father is ironmaster with forge and finery in the forest over beyond King’s Hill.  He built himself a fine stone house with the profits, and ever talked of sending me to university if my brother were to return from the war.  Which he did not.”  A shadow passed over Master Thomas’s face; and he paused for a moment _in memoriam_.  Then he added wryly, “My father fancied me suitable to make a minister.  Which I am not.”

Puck snorted.  “You a priest?  _That_ was wishful thinking.”

“That would be the Civil War, then?” Una asked tentatively.

“If you want to call it so,” said Master Thomas.  “There are those who prefer to name it the Great Rebellion; but _they_ are Royalists, of course.”  He swept off his hat suddenly and ran his hand through his short cropped hair.  “He would not let _me_ go to fight,” he said, and there was a world of old resentment in his voice, “though it be a righteous battle for the soul of England.  Still,” and his voice rose in a measure of triumph, “I was there to see the King at his execution; and that’s more than any other from hereabouts can say.”

The children, familiar with the Royalist cause from _The Children of the New Forest_ and Henty’s adventures and stories in _The Boys’ Own Paper_ , took this somewhat askance.  “Oh, the poor King,” said Una reprovingly.  “And they chopped off his head.  How can you talk like that?”

“Poor?” exclaimed Master Thomas.   “I dare say he pled poverty whenever he wanted to raise taxes; but kings dress uncommon well for ‘poor’ men.  As for the rest, he thought himself above the law.”

Una had heard her mother lament the cost of lace trim and collar, and decided it better to hold her peace.

“The carrier always brings a packet of the latest London broadsheets and pamphlets straight from the printers by St Paul’s,” continued Master Thomas with a note of pride.  “It was in the _Newes from Westminster_ —Mercurius Melancholius, you know: it comes out weekly.  _He_ said the trial of the King was to begin on Christmas Day. I begged my father to let me go.”

“And did he let you?”

“No,” said Master Thomas, ruefully.  “Though, as it turned out, the issue was moot: the trial did not, in fact, start until well into January.  The King refused to plead, you know, and was _ipso facto_ deemed guilty; but the High Court still heard witnesses sufficient to satisfy themselves _and_ the commonweal that the charges were just.  And so he was condemned and the date set.”

The children looked grave.

“I simply _had_ to go,” burst out Master Thomas.  For a moment, he sounded no older than the children themselves.

“So what did you do?” said Una practically.  “I mean, if you were forbidden to go up to London?”

“Well,” said Master Thomas, with a shy, sly twinkle, “I was not precisely _forbidden_ to go, just not given permission.  And Velox was mine own, after all:  a gift when I turned fifteen.  Of course, there were—” and he looked a bit guilty “—the three golden guineas from my father’s chest when he mislaid the key.”

“When you _took_ the key while he slept,” corrected Puck innocently, and pursed his lips and cast his eyes upward to look through the branches, where the last leaves lingered.

“Ah, well,” said Master Thomas, “it was worth every stroke of the flogging he gave me on my return.  I’d only been to London twice before; but the route is not ill-marked with milestones.  My uncle let me have a bed—and yes,” he admitted before Puck could speak, “I did let him think I had leave from my father.  In any case, I stayed but a couple of days, sufficient to see the spectacle of the execution.”

“What was it like?” asked Dan.

“Don’t tell,” said Una quickly.  “I don’t want to know.”  Then, she added desperately, “Was he brave?”

“Yes,” said Master Thomas, but he sounded startled at the question.  “A little man, finely dressed, but he went to his doom with head high.  Still, I count his last speech to be inflammatory:  a sovereign and a subject are _not_ clean different things.  All men are subject to the Law, or should be.”

“There is but One Law in England for rich _and_ poor,” put in Puck.

“As he found in the end,” nodded Master Thomas.

“That’s Magna Charta,” said Dan wonderingly, for the children’s previous encounters with Puck had made them familiar with the Law that was signed at Runnymede.  Still, the execution of a King—however boldly he might face the Axe—is a lamentable thing to contemplate at Christmas.

So Hobden’s shout and the sudden crash as the fir fell to the ground did not come entirely unwelcome.  “Miss Una!  Mus’ Dan!” they heard.  “I be loading the cart.”

They turned at the call, and pushed through the bushes that lined the path so as to make the quickest route back.  Even thus, they found that he had the small fir already half heaved up.  They rushed to grab at the lower branches and add their own slight effort to lift it in.

“Eh, where’d the pair of you get off to?” he asked once the tree was settled in place.  “I ’eard your voices now and then amongst the trees, but couldn’t make out what you was up to.”  The children were brushing away the dead leaves from the hedge that stuck to the shoulders of their coats.

“Oh, scouting out the best ivy tree,” declared Dan, and Una added, “There’s a good bit of holly up there, thick with berries.”  Nor did either of them doubt the truth of what they said.

Hobden shifted the balance of the load and reached for a rope to tie it.  “Well,” he agreed, “once I’m done here, we must go and cut garlands, surely.  And a nice piece o’ mistletoe, too, for a kissin’ ring.”

 

__

 

**_All Ye Faithful_  **

_A Babe was born in Bethlehem so many years ago,_   
_And Ox and Ass gave worship to the King born humbly low._   
_With lowered head on bended knee, their Saviour they did know._

_None but blessed Mary heard the miracle that day_   
_As Heaven’s Grace gave fluency to beasts so they might pray_   
_To honour the young Jesus, who in the manger lay._

_Thus on the Eve of Christmas at the darkest hour of night_   
_In barn and byre the beasts may speak till dawn’s first rays of light._   
_Each year repeats this wonder, through Heaven’s holy might._

 

 

 **Watch Your Flocks**  

It was nearly midnight.  It had snowed lightly, powdering the lawn and rimming the rough bark on every twig.  The children had spent the day helping to decorate the parlour, hall, and front door, and then taken whatever lengths of holly and ivy were left and pinned them around the schoolroom.  After it was dark, carollers from the village had turned up at the door to serenade them all, and been invited in for hot mince pies and cups of tea.  The children had enjoyed their own share as supper, hung their oldest stockings, and then were sent to bed.  Lying under the covers they could hear the Christmas Tree being dressed in its glory to surprise them before breakfast.

For a while, they stayed awake listening to the faint voices of their parents and the rustling of decorations being hung on branches.  Then, as drowsiness crept up on them, they whispered to keep themselves awake.  At one point, Miss Blake came in and told them to quiet down.  However, it was clear that she had not overheard exactly what they had been saying to each other, but simply thought them over-excited about the morrow’s festivities.  “Remember,” she said.  “Father Christmas will not fill your stockings unless you behave yourself and go to sleep.”

Once she had left, though, Dan was out of bed again to visit Una—though this time he took pains to step carefully lest the boards squeak—and the two of them stifled a giggle or two over their governess’s failure to guess the true reason they were still awake.

Eventually, the Tree must have been fully bedecked with its Ornaments, for they could hear their father go into the hall to lock up and their mother’s footsteps as she mounted the staircase.  Then the door opened; and she looked in on them.  Both children feigned sleep, their faces turned away; and neither moved so much as a muscle when she set down the lamp and tucked them firmly in.

“They’re quite soundly dreaming,” she said softly to their father as he came up.  (If either child felt guilt on overhearing this, it was not sufficient to cause them to admit their wakefulness.)

Eventually, the house was quite still, save for the ticking of the clock on the shelf.  Every so often, either Dan or Una would rise to see where the hands were pointing—which had the virtue not only of telling them the progress of the hour but also stirring their lethargy.  Finally, it neared the half hour before midnight.  They rose and dressed as quickly and quietly as they could.  Then, carrying bicycle lamps, they crept downstairs (being careful to avoid the centre of the fourth stair down, which always creaks).  They did not bother to try the great front door, for they knew it to be locked and the key upstairs with their father, but instead went directly through to the parlour.  There, the windows were but latched; and, however firm a latch may be against burglars, it can still be twisted open from inside.  This done, they exerted themselves to drag over one of the heavy armchairs.  It made a sad screech on the floor.  However, though they paused in silent fear of discovery, there was no sound from above.

They clambered up and through the window, and jumped down onto the flowerbed outside.

At this point, they continued an argument that had begun hours before.  Una wanted them to walk over to Little Lindens Farm, where they would be sure to see the cows kneel in their byre at midnight when the Christ Child was born.  Dan, on the other hand, cared more to hear them talk; and, since the power of speech is granted to all beasts at that hour, did not see the point of going so far afield so late at night, for—as he pointed out—they could prove the truth of that part of the tale and not leave the familiar grounds of their own house.  In the end, it was the wind that decided the issue, for it whistled under the hem of their coats and up around their legs in a most unpleasant way, and made their ears tingle even with their hats pulled down as low as possible.  So, toasting their hands on the bicycle lamps, they headed for the shed where old Middenboro lived. 

At the creak of the door, the pony roused himself from his doze and snuffled their hands in the hope of a treat.  In this he was disappointed; but he was well petted as compensation.  Then the children waited.

After a while, Dan mused that it might have been a good idea to bring the clock with them.

“It would have been an awful nuisance trying to carry it with us out the window,” pointed out Una.  “It weighs terribly more than you think, too, despite its size.”

This was true.  And, as the children were both far too young to own a pocket watch, there was therefore no way for them to tell the time.

“It must _surely_ be close to midnight,” said Dan.  “Do you think perhaps we arrived too late?”

“I don’t see how.  We dressed so _very_ fast; and it was still well before the hour by the parlour clock.”

They waited some while longer.  It was quite comfortable inside the shed, enough that Una partway unbuttoned her coat and Dan took off his gloves.  Not only did the walls keep out the wind, but the shed was full of warm pony.

Still nothing happened.  Said Una sorrowfully, “I _knew_ we should have gone to Little Lindens.”

“Well, there’s no point lamenting over it now!”  Dan thought a moment.  “Maybe we should try the pig-pound, though it’s bound to smell rather strong.”

“Or the hen-house,” Una suggested, but then added almost immediately, “No, that won’t do.  It’s _animals_ talk at midnight, and hens are birds.”

“Then no wonder Middenboro won’t talk to us!” said Dan in disgusted realization.  “For _we_ aren’t animals, either:  we’re people.”

“And so you are,” said a sudden voice from mid air.  Startled, the children turned and peered up, raising the bicycle lamps for a better light.  The beams pierced the darkness; and they saw Puck in the hay-mow, leaning out and looking down.  He burst out laughing at the sight of their faces.  “And what am I?” he asked.

Their memories cleared and they recognized him.  “You are the oldest Old Thing in England,” said Una.  “ _That_ is what you are.”

“Which is a true word,” Puck agreed.  With a gesture, he invited them up.  Setting the bicycle lamps down, they climbed the ladder and sat beside him, their legs dangling over the edge.

“So, you came to hear the beasts speak,” he said, with a sideways glance.  “Ah, that’s Old Lore, that is.  I mind a time when all believed, heart and soul; and no man—nor woman either—would dare to test it.  You children live in bold times … or safe ones.”

“Well,” said Una, “there are no wolves in England now.”

“Nor raiders with swords,” put in Dan.

“Nor pirates.”

“’Tis, true,” said Puck.  “In this modern age, it takes rather less folly to venture forth in the darkest hour of the darkest day.”

Una yawned.

“Belike your bed calls,” suggested Puck, “and you two should return before you are missed.”

This the children would not allow.  “Everyone’s asleep,” explained Dan.  “Except for us, of course.  No one saw us leave.”

Below them, one of the bicycle lamps flickered as its gas ran out, and died into shadow.  Una looked down, wondering how long the other one would last.

“I do recall,” said Puck reminiscently, “another girl—not so very much older that you two—who came out from the hut where her family were sleeping.  Like you, she wanted to hear the beasts.  That was long ago,” he added.  “Minka was her name; and she herded the village goats.”

“ _How_ long ago?” asked Una, hoping that perhaps they were about to meet another of Puck’s friends.

“Long after the earliest times, but before the Romans came,” replied Puck.  “Folks had metal by then; or, at least, the richest did.  There was no Cold Iron to set above the doors; but there was Quickbeam (which is also called Rowan), to keep off the People of the Hills.  She had a little bunch of the berries, dried and sewn inside an amulet that she wore round her neck.  So _that_ peril, at least, she did not face.”

“I thought it was the birth of the Christ Child that gave the Ox and Ass the power of speech,” said Dan.

“Oh, that bit was added later,” said Puck easily, “when your Christ came into England.  Gods arrive and Gods depart; and Minka’s Gods came down in the world long before the Romans arrived in these parts, let alone St. Wilfrid converting the heathen.  In their day, though, they were mighty; and she prayed for their protection.  I suppose they gave it to her, or else she was lucky, for she returned safely home despite the terrors of the night.”

“I think I’d like to meet her,” hinted Una.

“She is beyond the seizin you took,” said Puck gravely, “for that runs but three thousand years; and she lived near a thousand more before that measure.”

“One rather forgets,” said Una ruefully, “how long England has been here.  We’ve met people back to—”  She paused to think.  “—the very Coming of Cold Iron, when the flint-worker bought the knife to save the flock.”

Dan remembered.  He looked thoughtfully at Puck, who had been there before all the stories were told.  The Old One looked back.  

“And you?” asked Dan.  “When did _you_ come to England?”

“With Oak, Ash, and Thorn,” said Puck, as he had told them before.  “And when Oak, Ash, and Thorn are gone, then I shall go too.”

“Yes, but when _was_ that?” asked Una, leaning forward eagerly.  “Before Cold Iron, I know; but _when_?  You are the oldest, after all.  Was it back before the Flood? ”

“Way back with mammoths and dinosaurs?” asked Dan.  “There were Ice Ages once, too.”

“Oak, Ash, and Thorn do not thrive under Ice,” said Puck.  “Nor yet by it, either.  It was after that.”

 

It was a while later that their father came looking for them with his lantern, and old Hobson with him.  One cannot leave a window open to the winter wind without having it be noticed, later if not sooner.  The children’s footsteps had been easy to follow; and, once the direction was plain, the destination (and the reason) not hard to guess.

The old pony whickered as they came in; and the dark bicycle lamps showed that the children had been there.  The men raised their own lanterns, and saw Dan’s hand dangling loosely over the edge of the hay-mow.  They climbed the ladder, and found the pair of them curled cosily asleep, like dormice in their nests.

Her father picked up Una and carried her down.  Hobson bent in his turn to Dan.  “Ah,” he said, brushing lightly at the boy’s coat.  “There’s hedge-scritchings in that hay.”

“It’ll do,” said Father, at the foot of the ladder.  And so it did.


End file.
